Rock you, baby!

“Can I come over to your house right now? I want to see if I can borrow some books,” she says with a sunny smile. She’s the his, hers and ours category friend that adds up to family and we’ve stood by each other through kids, home, jobs, the good, the bad etc.

“Oh sure, no problem, come on over,” said with a smile to match but a thought bubble overhead with the words ‘why right now—anything else on the agenda?’

Trepidation fills the air. When there is too much one knows and too much to say to each other but at the same time you know that it’s best to leave things unsaid, that’s when trepidation hangs like a heavy smog, polluting the air with subconscious anxiety.

The kids play and their banter breaks in to the smog like filtered sun rays. But it’s evening and in the kitchen, the rice and vegetables are begging to get cooked and the cooking range and microwave are getting restless.

“Want to stay for dinner?”

“No”, she says, “I really have to go. I just wanted to come over because I just wanted to see you. We’ve come a long way. Remember how you said that all you need in your life to make you happy would be a reading lamp and a rocking chair?”

“Yes, I still feel that way—a comfy rocking chair, a light over my head and a good book—but I said that years ago. I am surprised you remember!”

She’s got this really pretty face, with eyes that light up, and an infectious smile from the heart that it’s tough to throw her out of the house. But I do know that the onions are crying to be sliced and that I have work to do and then suddenly she say, “ I’ll be on my way” and I see her out with all the usual goodbyes.

After a while, the doorbell rings. “I came back”, she says. I can see that you did, replies me wondering what’s up, people?

“Is there something you want to tell me? I ask. “No, I just want to stay a while”, she says. “Ok then—play with the kids, I’ll rustle us up a dinner”. I feel edgy. Is something wrong and she needs to tell me. I do not want any bad news—oh god, anything but bad news.

The doorbell rings again. “I’m from the Bombay Cane Store”, says a surly chap at the door. “I don’t care where you are from, I am busy, please do not disturb me’, the words are bold and underlined and I close the door.

She flies out of the kids room, like a bat, and screams, “No no, wait…” She opens the door and runs. I am beginning to doubt her sanity now but am rooted. She returns with Surly who is hauling in a rocking chair.

I am not only rooted but I have grown a trunk, branches, leaves and the flowers of ‘what exactly happened here’ spring from my brain. “You got me a rocking chair?!!”

“You said it would make you happy. I wanted you to know that there are so many people like me who love you, who want to see you happy.”

She bought me a rocking chair, and she was waiting for it to get delivered to my house? She did it just for me? She wanted to get it for my birthday but it was only today that she made a profit on a stock and this chair was meant just for me? Speechless. Overwhelmed.

Am touched to stun, adding this improvisation on ‘turned to stone’ to the rooted bit. But not stunned enough to know that I indeed have people like her around me, friends, family and other animals, singing the remixed-hit from Queen for me, “We will, we will rock you—rock you, baby!

Just one question, which I do not want answered any way: What the hell have I done to be blessed this way?